9. I Wanna Be Loved – Elvis Costello and the Attractions

He’s just so effortlessly cool, isn’t he? Defiantly geeky when he arrived on the scene, he clearly didn’t care what people thought of him with his giant glasses and fifties styling, because he knew his songs would last forever. And they do: you’ve just got to say Pump It Up, Watching The Detectives, Veronica, I Write The Book, and they burrow into your ears without being asked. This song always struck me as beautiful, as does the video: sadly it was recorded just after his wife, who was on tour on the other side of the world (she was the bass player for The Pogues), told him she wanted a divorce. Most people would cancel the shoot and hide in their hotel room and moan, but he went down to the main station in Melbourne and put his pain on display for the world.

I saw him once, in Venice: I was sitting in a bar and he strolled through, wearing a huge coat, shiny black trousers with some sort of pattern sown along the length in black, glasses with diamonds along the arms, and the makings of a wry grin on his face. He blew threw the place like he owned it and was going to the cooler, secret room out the back, and I want to say he winked as he passed. And you weren’t there, so I will. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOdi7-vpRG4